Chick flick anatomy

Watching “Made of Honor” is nothing but a cruel reminder of the movie that it will never live up to, the classic romantic comedy and mother of all chick flicks: “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”  Simply the same tale, but with reversed roles and a more modern spin, the sole highlight of this film is the amazingly charming and handsome Patrick Dempsey. (There are five, count ‘em five, shirtless scenes).

Tom ( Dempsey)  is a Manhattan  man-whore who realizes that he has feelings for his best friend, the gorgeous and outgoing girl-next-door, Hannah (Michelle Monaghan).  After a six-week excursion to Scotland,  Hannah returns engaged to Colin (Kevin McKidd),  who is reportedly perfect as well as a Scottish duke. In an attempt to save Hannah from marrying a guy she barely knows, Tom agrees to be her maid of honor, secretly hoping to ruin the wedding as an inside man.

In case the previews didn’t give the ending away enough for you, here’s another hint: the writers simply didn’t like the way “My Best Friend’s Wedding” ended. They also didn’t seem to like the realistic part, so they threw in a Scottish wedding scene with a strange family and odd traditions. Although moments of witty dialogue do exist, the plot is too unoriginal and unrealistic to possibly be salvaged. It seems a group of talented actors simply agreed to perform an unfortunate script.

The film does, however, carry the four oh-so-necessary elements of the chick flick genre in order to make it somewhat successful: a cute boy that meets a cute girl, a terrible circumstance that causes separation (insert pop song of the week), some sort of boy-chases-girl moment, and a scene where suddenly their eyes meet before a passionate kiss. In fact, if “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”  had a movie baby, this would be it.

Unoriginal and extremely predictable, “Made of Honor” covers its bases as an average romantic comedy, but if you come into the theater expecting anything more, you’ll leave terribly disappointed.

It doesn’t look like director Paul Weiland (“City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly’s Gold,” “Mr Bean” TV series) has much experience with directing romantic comedies. If there is one lesson to be learned, it’s not to mess with a classic.